Hey,
When I first heard about the Totemic tree for resto I got super excited about finally being able to return to playing resto shaman again. My biggest issue has always been Healing Rain as it’s a spell you need to cast off CD at all times and it has a long cast time which this hero talent tree looked like it was gonna fix.
Issues:
It has been mentioned before but since it’s my biggest issue I will say it again. Let us target where it goes. It can work exactly the same way as Earthen Wall Totem, that way we have control over where the Healing Rain will be. If you still want the smart heal it should be within something like 10 yrds of where you drop the totem so you have control over what group it will go on. If this is not fixed you can’t really play this in keys if you are running with 3 ranged, it will always be on ranged and you lose out on Acid Rain damage.
I dislike the way it works right now with duration/cooldown of the totem. When you drop it you have an 8 second duration healing rain(normal Healing Rain is 10 seconds) which refreshes again after 8 seconds and then once more. This leaves you with a 6 second window where you don’t have Healing Rain down which just feels bad. This could easily be fixed by making sure that it drops a Healing Rain before it disappears so you are able to have constant uptime on Healing Rain. Maybe it’s not the intention to make us able to have 100% uptime on it but that feels odd to me if that’s the case.
Air mote in the capstone feels bad, we already have so many tools to lower our cast time, we don’t need more. Give a buff to our next direct heal or maybe the next direct heal acts as if it was cast during Ascendance etc.
Bugs:
When in Ghost Wolf you are able to drop surging totem without transforming back to human form and as long as you stay in Ghost Wolf it doesn’t work, no healing rain is cast. The issue also happens if you transform into Wolf after you have dropped it, first Healing Rain is cast but if you are Wolf when the second one is supposed to be cast nothing happens. Doesn’t feel good if you have to go Wolf to dodge an ability and then you miss a cast from the totem due to this.
Most other things I have seen mentioned before or don’t have an issue with. I am very happy with the rest of the tree.
Edit: Removed something that proved incorrect in the bug part.
please change DRE for enhance to proc after 40 msw or something. the rng stormstrike spam fiesta is really annoying
would also be helpful if tempest could not run out. during leveling i barely used tempest because once i got it procced, i had no mob anywhere to use it on. 30s duration is too short
Totemic Feedback as a Resto main: I love it overall, but there’s one issue - sometimes the healing rains target random ranged DPS players and since I don’t have control over its positioning… It’s almost as if the rain ability doesn’t exist when that happens. Maybe try to ensure it hits the maximum number of players? Idk. But Apart from that, it is very fun.
I would like to understand something… but do we realize that a class has been completely ignored for weeks? give us at least a clue by saying “yes we are working on it don’t worry”… As it is today in BETA elemetal is unplayable, we don’t have the “famous” raid buff and as usual it is the most useless class in the game inside the game, mediocre DPS, defenses suck… usual things… what do we want to do?
Do you want to wake up and change this talent branch and make it decent? do you want to give a BUFF to bring and share in RAID to allow us a minimum of usefulness? Do you want to fix survival with suitable defensive? What are you waiting for? what do you have in your brain PIGEONS?
This is BY FAR, the most unprofessional approach towards shaman class and its players since ever. No communication for both alpha and beta cycles, prepatch is around the corner meaning the copium for meaningful changes isn’t going to happen, literally 0 changes besides the most random and stupid one today, linking Skyfury totem into, guess what, Primordial wave. As if having it tied to a whole hero tree wasn’t enough for elemental. GGs I guess, I do hope they do refunds, they can have their beta testing back
I have played each class on Beta and 100% sure shaman needs to have major changes. It is so ridiculous that other classes even has set changed now when shaman gets nothing. I don’t think there is anything that should not be changed overall, or at least its interactions with other talents, skills etc. I will focus on major things:
class tree is average, it for sure needs more real defensive options, look at DK for example, DK has so many defensive options that they do not need to have immunity like cloak of shadows… and healing surge is not defensive option !!!
shaman need something that they can provide to raid and not some terrible bonus speed totem. Even when devs are lazy it could be just choice node with windfury totem / skyfire totem, some passive raid buff to haste. Why some classes can give intellect, versa etc and shamans nothing. For example just give 5% haste buff.
IT is beyond belief how terrible designed Ele/Enh spec trees are. In WoW universe you are single point of all elemental power. You can have so many cool designs.
I don’t get it Blizzard / Xbox has a lot of money, when they cannot hire professional employees to manage that? Ele / Enh talent trees are so one sided, it makes hero talent complete garbage because you will never balance it well regarding form of magic talents you use. Explanation:
– As Ele you either go lightning or fire. So for example when going fire hero talent Tempest is useless really. Earthquake is the worst skill in a game. It has knockback okay, but it deals damage over many seconds in small radius so you almost never gets it full value… Oh and mastery does not help here at all haha. The only thing really buffing spenders is in the middle at the end of talent tries and only for single talent build you have points to take this. Ele has the worst dps CD in game. Summoned elementals gives you almost nothing.
– Enh is either physical / nature with already garbage interactions because of Spirit Wolfs does not increasing both, or full elemental where stormstrike is really useless. Hero talents are mixing both so how can you use it properly? You cannot.
– Ascendance should be redesigned in general because it has too long cd compared to what it gives and its effects have the same issue like other shaman things. Either it does not work for this spec, it buffs skill that is not often used by chosen spec etc.
I sometimes feel like resto shaman is fine mostly because it is so straightforward healing spec that you cannot break it too much, but I play it only occasionally so I give chance for other people to say what they think should be changed here
We have no raid buff, we’re stuck with 2 sub-specs in the elemental talent tree, elemental has far, far too much RNG with the addition of Farseer and stormbringer is completely counter-intuitive to the flow of the spec.
Ascendance is a non-CD, the thing is so crap for a 3 minute CD compared to recklessness and others.
Elementals are completely undertuned for ele.
I just want to know when they are going to sort this out instead of ignoring us AGAIN
I dont know what to do for finally having a communication.
Just after the patch note, I saw a “Blizzard respond to warlock feedback” news on wowhead.
It achieved me.
On US forum (because I think they dont read EU forum), the shaman feedback thread is the 2nd most viewed and answered but there is no blue message (except the first one, the copy paste from Kaivax).
So they cant say they didnt see, at this point, they volontary ignore it.
I did a request to asking them to let me post in US forum and in same time, I asked how to have an answer or at least a little “we heard you” message, but all they said is to continue to post on the forum.
I always hope that maybe, one day, when stars are aligned, the devs will read the forum do the corrections and even maybe the rework they should have done at Shadowlands.
It really is just crazy at this point the total silence. I don’t see why we cannot at least get a blue post to tell us nothing is going to change rather than leaving the class languishing week on week while people beg for changes.
Its a very strange thing indeed, i thought the whole point of stormbringer was to make it a lightning themed spec, but your still using alot of lava burst and still having to spend with earthquake.
ive always had an issue with earthquake just being a clunky aoe spender, having to click and place, would be smooth to spend if it was ‘starfall like’ and drops around your current target.
Think the ghost wolve needs a big visual overhaul, the spirit wolves also and should be available to elemental also. Ele lacks a real class cooldown, all cds are talent based and dont even feel like cooldowns.
Im torn between ele and boomkin atm, but both are playing like utter rubbish and have been for a long time.
We still have things Not yet implemented, pre patch is next month.
No changes on beta, we’ve had massive issues with how stormbringer works and its been radio silence.
This is beyond a joke! What the hell is the point of buying the xpac or or paying a monthly sub when things are allowed to be in this state.
Great time to stop logging in with shaman.
Blizzard pls give all shamans some kind of “Class Change” for our toons at this point its 1 huge GnOmE pranking all of us.
Great post overall, I agree with the issues Tempest has for Elemental. I just wanted to put a focus on the excerpt I quoted above.
For Enhancement, Lightning Bolt is a spender/nuke that you build up towards - Elemental’s equivalent is Earth Shock - Lightning Bolt is a builder/filler, so a completely different priority spell.
However, it doesn’t have to be one to one conversion, and therefore I think you’re are 100% spot on about that Elemental Stormbringer’s Tempest should replace Lava Burst instead. Lava Burst is a key ability for Elemental rotation, being both a builder and a nuke, so it’s unique in comparison. Also, the long cast time on Tempest could be then alleviated to let it benefit from Lava Surge, which makes Lava Burst instant.
Generally I think this would lead to a more Lightning oriented build Stormbringer aims toward, making the Elemental Shaman throw more lightning than fire without forgoing their regular rotation.
On a separate note, regarding Rolling Thunder talent:
For Enhancement, Rolling Thunder talent summons a Nature Feral Spirit. I think for Elemental it should summon a Storm Elemental instead of granting a stack of Stormkeeper. Random Stormkeeper doesn’t feel very good, especially when it doesn’t interact with Tempest, whereas an elemental can just do damage on its own just like Feral Spirit does,